Thursday, November 17, 2011

Summer Soccer

This summer the girls each took part in Summer Soccer again. This is a program run by volunteers for the students of our school. We pay $4 per student to play, and this cost is just to cover the cost of the metals and team pictures that are purchased for the players for the end of the year.

This year I happened to be on the organizing committee and we worked to try and set up a program that is closer to what the “town soccer” offers. Practice time started at 6:30pm and then shortly after 7:00 the kids would have a snack before they started game time, which went to 8:00pm. The school property is divided up so that all ages are playing on the same night. We have three divisions so that the little kids don’t get run over by bigger kids. Right now our older grades team is lacking in players, but we hope as this program takes off it will begin to fill up a bit more. Coaches are volunteers who receive a coaching binder with a large list of coaching games to help them teach the kids skill. Each team has two coaches to help things run smoothly. Finding enough coaches is our biggest problem but we hope that parents will be willing to take a turn from time to time so that the same parents aren’t always coaching. Rob and I both coached a team this year, Rob did Marietta’s team and I did Rebecca’s team. This worked out fine, except for the fact that I never got to see Marietta play. Next year will be different as Matthew will start playing and I would really like to see him playing but do not want to be his coach as I think he will do better under someone else. Marietta and Rebecca will be on the same team next year, but if I coach that means I won’t have time to watch Matthew. So we’ll have to see if we get enough volunteers next year.

I think overall the changes we made to the program (this is the second year it was done) went over well and were a good improvement. We hope to be able to keep it up and I’m sure over time we’ll iron out some of the other glitches. The kids enjoyed it and Matthew is already talking about how next year he will get to play soccer too.